Today we face many grave environmental issues: food
crises, mainly in developing countries, due to explosive increase
in population; global warming owing to excessive carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere; the heat island phenomenon produced by heat discharged
by cars and from office buildings; depletion of the ozone layer;
expansion of deserts; and catastrophic flooding in tropical regions
due to rapid deforestation - to name only the most urgent ones.
In this, the twenty-first century, our global environment continues
to deteriorate rapidly, and human beings are now exposed to the
possibility of extinction. The loss of forests in tropical regions
in particular is extreme.

At the United Nations Forest Forum held in Geneva May
26, 2003, Secretary General, Koffi Annan announced that forested
areas in tropical regions destroyed by illegal deforestation amounted
to 940,000 km2 and that world-wide, the economic loss caused by
deforestation equaled 5 billion US dollars. In Southeast Asia forests
continue to be lost by slash-and-burn agriculture, and there is
large-scale deforestation in South America due to the harvest of
coca leaves, the source of cocaine. Forest areas lost in the course
of a single year therefore are enormous. The main reasons for deforestation
are closely related to the poverty of peoples living in tropical
forests and in mountain villages.

TGG was established with far-reaching vision and the
objective of planting great numbers of trees to save the earth and
its people from environmental disasters. In conventional forest
industries, reforestation has been little more than a catch phrase,
with no long-range view of benefit to the global environment. Moreover,
there has been little consideration of the unique ecological environments
of plantations and the regional cultures of people who live adjacent
to plantations. The actual purpose of reforestation, as practiced
in industrialized countries, has been economic gain from the razing
of mature trees.

Since World War II, advanced nations have undergone
rapid economic development and have imported most of the wood they
needed from developing countries with tropical rainforests. Planting
of imported tree species (for example, Eucalyptus) which
are not indigenous to Southeast Asia also has contributed to the
destruction of traditional ecosystems - local forests have been
destroyed, and the communal cultures associated with those forests
have collapsed. The values embraced by developing nations that undertook
economic development by adopting modern civilization have brought
poverty to countries which have been forest treasure houses. In
short, the apparent prosperity and abundance seen in developing
countries have come at the sacrifice of indigenous ways of life
and the natural environment. People in the tropics have been deprived
of the true happiness they had when they coexisted with nature and
enjoyed its blessings.

Tropical zones have become economic colonies of advanced nations,
developing countries must take responsibility for this and work
to restore coexistence with the natural environment. The recent
capitalistic economies of these counties have been based on "pursuit
of profit", the major classical capitalistic value since Adam
Smith. In the twentieth century, peoples of developing countries
zealously sought wealth. As a result, we are left with negative
world heritages that include the worst human massacres in history
and destruction of our global environment. We all need to realize
this and take it seriously.

We in TGG believe that economies based solely on the
pursuit of profit must end and that economic activities related
to the purification and restoration of the global environment are
essential for the happiness and peace of humankind. Therefore, reforestation
based solely on gaining profit from tree felling, which consequently
destroys the environment, must be avoided. Reforestation, in which
trees are allowed to fix and accumulate carbon dioxide over a long
period and in which the ecosystems and environments of Southeast
Asia are restored, therefore is practiced. We emphasize forest conservation
and are doing our best to help solve the problem of global warming
by promoting fixation of atmospheric carbon dioxide through tree
photosynthesis.

Our type of reforestation is based on more than economic
benefits from the felling of trees. We use intercropping and the
planting of valuable trees, such as fruit trees, to produce disposable
income. In this way, reforested areas can be protected from illegal
lumbering and slash-and burn agriculture, people can be helped to
become free of poverty, and regional cultures, in which humans coexist
with nature, can be re-established. Our goal is to spread this reforestation
philosophy throughout the world and to change the idea that reforestation
is only to obtain lumber and wood pulp.

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